DrupalCamp Australia 2008
Agileware
Justin Freeman (CEO)
An intro to some cool modules:
EditView, Signwriter,
ComputedField, OpenOffice Export
And a funky demo of:
Polygons with Google Maps

About Agileware
● Canberra­based IT company
● Established 2002 (in protest to dot­com bust)
● Team of 5 extraordinary staff
● Primarily develop Web based applications
● Specialise in Drupal applications and FOSS
●Services include: development, integration,
support, hosting
DrupalCamp Australia 2008

About Agileware
● Our clients include:
– Federal Government
– Department of Defence
– SMEs
– International companies
● Active contributor to the Drupal community
● We deploy and support FOSS
DrupalCamp Australia 2008

Contributed modules
●Contributed modules are either created for in­
house requirement or sponsored project
●Sponsored projects usually have multiple
contribution candidates
We look for unique and generally applicable
●
modules to contribute
●Drupal contributions require maintenance,
although most are production­ready
DrupalCamp Australia 2008

Why we contribute
● To give back to the Drupal community
● To improve the code
● To learn and gain experience
● To free the code
● To be a good citizen
DrupalCamp Australia 2008

Contributions require maintenance
● Drop'n dash contributions = bad karma
●Therefore, we try to respond to issues,
incorporate patches and roll­out new features
●This comes down to prioritising Community
above paid­services, allocating resources & time
● An imperfect juggling act
●Modules not maintained will be claimed by others
(lesson learnt)
DrupalCamp Australia 2008

Module: Signwriter
htttp://drupal.org/project/signwriter
● Use Case:
– Dynamically create graphics using true type
fonts and text from page
– No more Photoshop'ing
●Signwriter created to solve problem of great
graphic design (poor web design)
● Module used on most Agileware websites
DrupalCamp Australia 2008

Module: Signwriter
htttp://drupal.org/project/signwriter
Dynamically replace any text element on a page
●
with a nicely rendered image with alt text
●Can set font (ttf), font colour, size, background
colour, transparency, background image (can write
on images)
Use Signwriter to create an Input Filter and
●
Regex replacement, or
● Insert Signwriter code directly into your tpl files
DrupalCamp Australia 2008

Module: Signwriter
htttp://drupal.org/project/signwriter
● Stable, good feature set and easy to use
● Drupal 4.7, Drupal 5 and Drupal 6
●Recently underwent major refactor by eMPee584
(node/316295), thanks mate!
●Now D6 version allows replace page/block titles,
font/style preview, coder style, unicode handling
and more
DrupalCamp Australia 2008

Module: Signwriter
htttp://drupal.org/project/signwriter
●Example 1: Replacing the page title in your
theme
● Create a signwriter profile in drupal called 'Theme
Heading', and assign the other settings to your
liking.
Add the following code to your page.tpl.php
●
where you want to print the page title.
DrupalCamp Australia 2008

<?php
if ($title != '') {
$profile =
signwriter_load_profile('Theme Heading');
// $profile­>fontsize = 43; //
override the font size
print
signwriter_title_convert($title,
$profile);
}
?>
DrupalCamp Australia 2008

Module: Signwriter
htttp://drupal.org/project/signwriter
● Example 2: Using Signwriter without a profile
●Add your custom font to your theme directory. In
this example we'll use Arial.ttf.
● Add the following code to your page.tpl.php.
DrupalCamp Australia 2008

<?php
if ($title != '') {
$profile­>fontfile = 'Arial';
$profile­>fontsize = 15;
$profile­>foreground = 'ff0000'; // red
$profile­>background = 'ffffff'; //
white. If your text is jagged then change this to
your page background colour
$profile­>maxwidth = 600;
$profile­>transparent = true;
print signwriter_title_convert($title,
$profile);
}
?>
DrupalCamp Australia 2008

Module: Signwriter
htttp://drupal.org/project/signwriter
● Demo
DrupalCamp Australia 2008

Module: Open Office Exporter
● Use Case:
– Perform Mail Merge feature using Open
Office and Drupal
– Converts Drupal data into Open Office text
●Used by Agileware to generate quotes, invoices,
contracts and other documentation
●Fast, platform independent, no Open Office
required server­side
DrupalCamp Australia 2008

Module: Open Office Exporter
● Requires CCK module
Drupal 5 only currently, Drupal 6 RSN. Maybe MS
●
OpenXML in future too
● Setup
– Add Open Office CCK field to node type
– Insert code to export Drupal data
– Open Office doc must have matching fields
DrupalCamp Australia 2008

Module: Open Office Exporter
● Demo
DrupalCamp Australia 2008

Module: EditView
htttp://drupal.org/project/editview
● Use Case:
– How to add, update, delete records based
data quickly
– Customer wants MS Excel like functionality
on website
● Sponsored project for completing complex survey
●Perform CRUD ops on Nodes and uploads,
images, dates (JSCalendar), Events
DrupalCamp Australia 2008

Module: EditView
htttp://drupal.org/project/editview
● Drupal Views plugin adds new Views type
● Turns any Views node data into editable rows
● Can be used in one­to­many relationships
● Obeys required field rules
● Easy to setup and to use
Drupal 5 only, no Drupal 6 yet. Not compatible
●
with Views 2 (rc++)
DrupalCamp Australia 2008

Module: EditView
htttp://drupal.org/project/editview
● Demo
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Module: ComputedField
htttp://drupal.org/project/computed_field
●Use Case: Need to calculate field value based on
other CCK fields or some other factor
●CCK field type that allows insertion of PHP code
to evaluate a field value (or do anything!)
●Concept is based on Lotus Notes, Computed
field type (don't laugh!)
●No longer need custom mini/generic modules to
alter the node data. ComputedField solves this
problem.
DrupalCamp Australia 2008

Module: ComputedField
htttp://drupal.org/project/computed_field
● Code is part of the node type CCK fields
● Easy to manage, can be exported/imported
● Hard to debug
●Assumes you know what you are doing, it's just
PHP code with no helpers
●Can use to either: Store calculated value in
Drupal, or only display calculated value (not
stored) Views
DrupalCamp Australia 2008

Module: ComputedField
htttp://drupal.org/project/computed_field
● Example ComputedField:
$node_field[0]['value'] = $node­
>field_product_price[0]['value'] +
$node­>field_postage_price[0]
['value'];
●Lots of code examples at
http://drupal.org/node/149228
DrupalCamp Australia 2008

Module: ComputedField
htttp://drupal.org/project/computed_field
● Demo
DrupalCamp Australia 2008

Polygons with Google Maps
● Use Case:
– Define multiple regions of interest on a
Google Map
– Users can click on region for more
information (from related nodes or taxonomy)
– Each region defined by arbitrary points
creating a polygon
Sponsored project to map regions on Google
●
Map.
DrupalCamp Australia 2008

Polygons with Google Maps
● Patches to Gmaps and Location modules
● Uses the existing Gmap view type
Adds feature to select marker or polygon for the
●
Google Map
●Ability to assign multiple points on a single map,
instead of the default multiple maps, single point.
● Works with current Gmap and Location modules
DrupalCamp Australia 2008

Polygons with Google Maps
● Demo
DrupalCamp Australia 2008

Thanks for listening
Agileware
http://agileware.net
Drupal coders and themers
YES, WE ARE FOR HIRE
HELP WANTED
Looking for support to convert EditView to D6 &
Views 2
DrupalCamp Australia 2008